The flood wave, which has been flowing south to north in Poland for over a week now, is to reach the Baltic Sea tonight, bringing with it hundreds of thousands of tones of contaminated debris.
“The water in the Vistula is murky, as if you dissolved clay in a bucket,” Tadeusz Lamapart, a fisherman from the northern town of Mikoszewo told Polish Radio. Dirty water is what Lamapart and other inhabitants of coastal towns fear most. “The worst will be if all that filth contaminates beaches,” he added.
The environmental threat is real, claims Prof. Jacek Namiesnik from Gdansk University of Technology. “All rivers, especially larger ones, such as the Vistula or the Oder, are washing up impurities washed away from the flooded area: tonnes of trash, the remains of drowned animals, chemicals. Some of the dirt may deposit on beaches,” says Namiesnik.
Meanwhile, the situation in the northern region of Pomerania, which was in danger of being flooded yesterday, has improved. The water in the Vistula River is slowly subsiding, emergency services report. In the town of Tczew the Vistula River reached 2.5 meters above the alert level. In many areas of Pomerania schools and kindergartens are closed till the end of the week, though nobody has had to be evacuated.
Animals rescued
Several thousand animals have been rescued from the flood in the central Mazovia region alone. The Warsaw Province Offices have announced a collection of food for the animals, mainly pigs, cows and horses, but also cats and dogs.
Warsaw municipal guards have been patrolling flooded areas, looking for abandoned pets. Most animals are being found on the right bank of the Vistula, where foxes, deer and wild boars are wandering into urban areas to escape the high water. The municipal patrols have tried to rescue animals 200 times over the past two days.
In Zulawy Wislane, meanwhile, which is the delta area of the Vistula, hunters are shooting beavers which are destroy embankments. (mg/ek/pg)
Source: IAR, TVN24
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